Athletics News

For someone who is 6-4 and nearly 300 pounds, Travis Mason can be a hard man to pin down.

The junior offensive lineman from Oklahoma City has always been known by his football teammates to possess boundless energy and instant enthusiasm for any challenge or project that might come his way.

But this season, he is taking his impact campus-wide.

Mason was recently elected President of Rice University's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and will also serve as the Rice representative Conference USA's SAAC. In addition, David Bailiff has appointed Mason as Student Player Personnel Director. Finally, Athletic Director Chris Del Conte tapped Mason to head Rice football team's new community outreach initiative.

As the Rice University SAAC president, Mason represents 360 student-athletes and encourages communication between the student-athletes, the university and Conference USA.

"The goals for the next year are to unify athletes across teams and across campus in order to create several community service projects and introduce professional development and networking initiatives," Mason said. Mason also acts as a liaison between student-athletes, athletic teams, the Rice College system and the greater Houston community.

"Travis has demonstrated excellent leadership skills," Bailiff stated. "We think he will be an excellent representative to Conference USA".

As head the of the new Rice football community outreach program Mason said, "Our first goal will be to expand and improve the grade school reading program by student-athletes to our neighborhood schools."

Even while the Owls have been piling up wins on the field, they have been racking up an equally impressive number of visits to the schools that surround the Rice campus, reading to the classes and also speaking about the values of education and nutrition.

As a guiding force behind the Owls efforts in the community, Travis Mason has identified himself as truly one of Tomorrow's Leaders.